Death
Death is the most versatile character in the game, and it's a character with very high potential. This makes the skill cap needed to play this character rise. Death's greatest weapons are his minions, debuffs and healing. Depending on how you decide to stat your death, you will prioritize some of those alternatives over other. Your options are making an INT Death, or a STR one, a hybrid death has proven to not be effective. STR death has stronger minions, and applying debuffs costs barely any HP (if any) however, his healing input/output is reduced to nothing. INT death has slightly weaker minions, in the meaning they have less hp and applying debuffs costs more hp %. But your healing input/output is huge. Going for an INT death is suggested over making a STR one, this is because, even though STR death's minions have more hp, they do NOT have more magic resistance, which is the thing that actually makes units tanky. Debuffs may cost more HP %, but you can outheal them easily and still be able to support your team with heals. Tier requirements: In LvL 1000 area of "Hell" , kill 5 of "Fragment Of Damien", which spawns boss Damien, whom you have to kill personally. Skills Mark of Death Q *'Debuff' +10% physical/magical damage, +5% physical/magical crit chance, +25% physical/magical crit damage. *'Duration' 5 seconds. *'Cooldown' 20 seconds. *'Additional Info' Does not stack with itself. Attacks on marked enemies deal additional attacker's All Stat x1 damage. Souls of the Dead W *'Summons' 2 souls. *'Stats' Health: 500k + Top Stat x3 + STRx1 + INTx1. *'Duration' 30 seconds. 37 seconds with CW. *'Cooldown' 30 seconds. These minions have a spell of their own. Skeletal Horrors E *'Summons' 3 random skeletons. *'Duration' 40 seconds. 50 seconds with CW. *'Cooldown' 50 seconds. *'Skeletal Mage Stats' Health: 750K + Top Statx5 + STRx1 + INTx2. Low armor, high magic resistance *'Skeletal Warrior Stats' Health: 1M + Top Statx5 + STRx5. Great armor, low magic resistance. Each skeleton has a spell of their own. Demon of Decay R *'Summon' One demon of decay. *'Stats' Health: 1M + Top Statx10 + STRx7,5. *'Duration' 60 seconds. 75 seconds with CW. *'Cooldown' 90 seconds. *'Self harm:' Consumes 15% of missing HP to summon. The demon of decay has 2 unique spells. Soul Transfer D Passive *'Healing' From all sources is reduced to 40% *'Attacks' Restore STRx4% of Max Health *'All Death summons' Magic Defense increased by 50% Active Soul Transfer *'In Soul Harvester' mode (summoner), transfer STRx0.4 + INTx1 hp to a target unit. *'In Soul Reaper' mode (debuffer), transfer STRx1 + INTx0.4 hp from a target allied unit. *'Additional Info' Summons lose/gain 250% of the transfer amount. *'Cooldown' 1 second. Ethereal Apparition T *'Summon' One Ethereal Apparition *'Stats' Health: 2M + Top Statx7.5 + STRx10 *'Damage:' Each attack deals Top Statx0.03 + INTx0.03 pure damage. *'Duration' 120 seconds. 150 with CW. *'Cooldown' 240 seconds. *'Self harm:' Consumes 25% of missing HP to summon. The Queen of Death has 2 unique spells of her own. Soul Reaper/Harvester F Grants an alternate set of skills. These being W E R T and an alternate effect on D (already explained). Death's Chosen F-W A summon chosen by Death will gain wicked power *'Soul of the Dead:' Dying Soul healing + 50% and penalty removed. *'Skeletal Horror:' Attack Speed + 150%. *'Demon of Decay:' Damage received - 40% *'Ethereal Apparition:' All damage dealt + 20% *'Duration:' Permanent. *'Cooldown:' 15 seconds. *'Consumes' 4% of current health + STRx1.5 on use. Decay Soul F-E *'Debuff:' Decreases target's attack damage, physical and magical defense by 4%/7.5%/10.5%/13%. *'Duration:' 15/12/9/6. *'Cooldown:' 10 seconds. *'Consumes' 5% of current health + INTx1.5. *'Additional Info:' Decay soul can be casted up to 4 times. Each cast resets the duration. Debuff only stacks if the same death casts it again. *'Additional Info 2' You can get up to 3 Decay Soul stacks on a target, but to get the 4th you'll need a CD reset, such as the one Soul Remanifestation T provides, or the Class Weapon active. Soul Reap F-R *'Damage:' Top Statx250 + INTx300 Damage. Deals +50% bonus damage on consumption of Mark of Death Q. *'Debuff:' Applies all Normal-type damage (Phys and Magic) dealt to the target has a 50% chance to convert into Unholy damage. (The more hp the target has, the more damage it will take up to +50% at full hp. *'Soul Obliteration:' After the above damage is dealt, kills the target instantly if its below 7.5% health. *'Debuff duration:' 9 seconds. *'Cooldown:' 45 seconds. *'Consumes' 15% of Max and Current health. Soul Remanifestation F-T *'Damage' Top Statx300 + STRx450. *'Stun' 2 seconds. *'Resets' all non-summon cooldowns. *'Kills self' Death will revive in about 3 seconds with full hp. *'cooldown' 150 seconds. Item Choices The items listed below are of endgame level, up until that point it doesn't really matter what you use. INT>STR Weapon: Class Weapon. Armor: Meph Armor. Soul: Meph soul. Flag: Mystic flag. Gloves Abyssal Goddess' Hand is the best, but until you get it you can use solomon's hand. Accessory Wicked Eye and Hades Gates are your options. Wicked eye being generally better because of the stats and a situational active that can be useful. The plus of having hades gates is the active as well, being way better than the one from wicked eye, but is inferior in stats. You can choose between those 2, in fact having both of them is the ideal, just so you can swap them if the situation requires of it. STR>INT The only thing that would change is the accessory. Accessory Lucifer's Will is the best. Do not bother with other accessories like nemesis, they won't do any good. Grimoires One of death's main roles is debuffing, therefor the grimoires you aim for should be all debuffs or buffs used on allies. For now summon grimoires aren't great so they're out of the way. You could also go for healing grimoires, but we'll recommend buffs and debuffs over any other grimoire for this character. Oblivion: Bonechill, reduces movement speed, attack speed and damage from the target. Spirituality: Burning desire (buff) (recommended). It's generally better if you have one dps, but with several dps you might wanna use Weaken (debuff) Salvation: Ludviana's affection is great. You can also go for Sacred life if you feel you'll need it. Tricks * You can heal the Ethereal Apparition during R to extend it's duration. * When using the Souls of the Dead, the most optimal way of healing a target quickly is by buffing a shadow first and using that one, and then using the unbuffed one so the penalty doesn't reduce the healing of the buffed one. (Penalty is applied after the heal so it won't reduce the heal of the unbuffed Soul) * Skeletal Horrors are the best option if you want to drive away a boss and lose aggro, you could use a demon for it, but it would be a waste unless it's already summoned. * The abyssal hand heal trick is the main reason you go for this glove. Drop armor, use active, pick up armor. * E-Q-R Sounds like the obvious combo when you're in harvester stance, however keep in mind, using R after Q will consume the later one and you'll lose its debuff. If you have a team of strong dps, you wanna stack your debuffs like E-R-Q and if you're lucky, R will apply a debuff and it will stack with the other 2. * You can suck the life out of your Souls of the Dead before using their active heal, it's not much, but if you have the time to do it, go ahead. Playstyle & Tactics General playstyle There's a thousand things you can do when you're in combat. Your priorities definitely change depending on the situation. Overall, it goes this way: Healing>Tanking>Debuffing. Focus on debuffing only once the team is ready to dps. In some situations, your Ethereal apparition will be a life saver as well, keep that in mind. However, your healing will be almost none if you're a STR death, in which case your priorities would just be Tanking>Debuffing. Debuffs being your biggest contribution. 'Mephisto: ' A skilled death player is able to solo tank mephisto, help would be required after sitael dies though, so attempting solo tanking is possible if you have a thirst or some other tank/offtank that can aid you during this time. If solo tanking is not needed, then all you have to do is heal allies, tank and debuff the minions. When tanking Death, make sure he doesn't get one of your minions low because if he attacks him, it will execute it and wipe the whole floor. When tanking sitael, her chain will reset if she targets a minion, so either you summon your minions and take the chains with your hero, or you let someone else take the chains and then proceed to tank. For thirst, the best way of tanking, is not tanking him. You wanna use your Ethereal Apparition to stunlock him while your team gets him down. Thirst is dangerous because of his AOE splash, which is why attempting to tank him could work, but is very risky for your teammates. The slaughter illusion will melt down all the minions one by one, though if you have strong dps, you should have enough time to kill him, if you don't, then wait for another Ethereal Apparition and use the stunlock again. Lastly as a note, the execute on R will be useful against any endgame boss you use it, so try to save one for sticky situations. 'Diablo: ' Diablo is not easy for a death since all of your summons will get the embers on them, chances are you will run into an ally with them, or the minions will just die unless you have enough micro to move them all, you shouldn't worry about the skeletal horrors, but all of your other summons are valuable so try to save those at the very least. In this fight you can either stay at top and take the breath of fire while sending down minions to support your team and debuff diablo from time to time, or stay down and focus even more on actively healing, debuffing and tanking. This is the fight in which losing aggro with skeletons comes useful if your team fails, drive diablo into one corner and run to the other. Once diablo is low, just execute him with R. 'Solomon: ' Solomon on the other hand is the boss where death shines the most, you can easily stop his Blade (or slow down) with just your skeletal horrors and/or Bonechill, you can also easily swap aggro with your minions to save your allies. When solomon uses Retribution a buffed up demon can tank all of them, once they're about to explode, you can recall him to save him and continue tanking, this trick can apply for many situations with many different summons. If your team wiped and solomon has full mana, specially if its 300 mana, then death should enter the church alone (spawn your Ethereal Apparition before entering and once you're in press D to recall her in, don't walk her into the portal or it will take an entry and heal solomon even more) and use the R active as soon as solomon gets close to her. It will use up all of his mana and stunlock all of the clones, meanwhile you escape with your hero. This stunlock is also very useful in other situations in which Solomon suddenly spawns a tremendous amount of clones, you can easily stunlock them all. With that out of the way, it all goes back to the basics, continue healing, tanking, debuffing and carrying.